Re-use of Public Sector Information

The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) complies with the requirements of the Re-use of Public Sector Information (Amendment) Regulations 2015 by:

- Encouraging re-use of the information we publish by implementing the Scottish Parliament Copyright Licence.

- The Scottish Parliament licence means you can re-use the information we publish so long as you attribute the information to the Scottish Parliament and comply with the terms and conditions of the licence and the requirements of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

- Providing datasets in a machine readable format covering all parliamentary information that can usefully be provided as open data. Datasets are already available, including those containing information on motions, questions, answers and petitions. Access open data at the Scottish Parliament.

The Re-use (Amendment) Regulations 2015 require public bodies to define their “public task” setting out the body’s core role and functions.

The Scottish Parliament was established under the Scotland Act 1998 and its main functions are:

- to hold the Scottish Government to account through oral and written questions and through scrutiny of its policies in the committees;

- to make laws on devolved matters by examining, amending and voting on Bills and to scrutinise subordinate legislation made by the Scottish Ministers;

- to debate important topical issues;

- to conduct inquiries and publish reports.

The Re-use (Amendment) Regulations 2015 require public bodies to provide an asset register. An information asset is information that a public body produces, holds or disseminates that is of interest or value to itself and potentially to re-users and an information asset register is a register of these information assets.

The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body is responsible for ensuring that the Parliament is provided with the property, staff and services required for the Parliament’s purpose. To carry out these functions the SPCB considers and makes decisions on a wide range of issues to do with the running of the Parliament including; the allocation of the budget; staffing and the use and security of parliamentary facilities at Holyrood.

It is impractical to make a distinction between the information held by the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body and so the information... covered by our public task refers to both the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body.